


Freelancers Don't Cry

by mantisbelle



Series: Femslash February 2018 [1]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: F/F, First Meetings, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 13:06:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13547934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mantisbelle/pseuds/mantisbelle
Summary: Freelancers don’t cry- especially in the locker room where anyone can see them. South knows this, but Connie is new and could probably use a guide. South is happy to provide.





	Freelancers Don't Cry

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time really dabbling with either of these characters, and I am sincerely hoping that I did a good job with them because I absolutely ADORE both of them. 
> 
> Thank you all for reading, and I hope you enjoy the story.

Agent South Dakota had managed to sit consistently in the top five on the leaderboard for most of her time in Project Freelancer- the main exception being the time before she’d been given her rank when she’d first arrived. 

Early on, she learned that the best way to excel there was to be cutthroat and to take no prisoners in everything that she did. When her brother pushed or fought, she pushed and fought  _ harder _ . When they went into the field, when he did something she worked harder for it. It was what she needed to do to set herself apart and not sit in his shadow.   
  
There was not a single thing about it that she actually liked beyond the end result. That applied to most of Freelancer, actually. The regulations were stifling and a righteous pain in the ass, and the schedules were even worse. Agents were pretty hit and miss, but when everything was a competition making friends wasn’t always that easy.    
  
It was even harder to deal with when there was obvious favoritism at play in every corner. The people in the top three ranks got their own rooms while everyone else were forced to bunk with two or three other people at a given time. Carolina could get just about  _ anything  _ that she wanted if she asked, and York had been taken on and off the board more times than South could count for either breaking rules, disregarding regulations, or just getting into places that he didn’t belong- only to bounce right back to where he’d come from.    
  
South’s brother had even been reprimanded a few times himself, but South had never seen him drop off the board for long.    
  
For most of them, once they were off they were back just as quick, as easy as breathing. For South, when she got knocked down it always felt much harder to get back to where she was then it was for the others. 

But the demotions that were the most frustrating were the cases where people got moved up or down for their performance. When it came to breaking rules it was easy to figure out the cause. Missions instead left South picking apart every single little thing that she'd done on a mission looking for whatever the one thing that she'd done wrong was. 

Very rarely did she seem to find something. What it usually came down to was that she would rush through a mission and set off an alarm or two. York had the same bad habit and was a loudmouth on top of it. And yet he never seemed to get thrown down the board for it.   
  
Needless to say, it was  _ frustrating _ .    
  
South stormed into the locker room fresh out of a debriefing. The locker room was thankfully empty for the moment- South didn’t even  _  know  _ how she’d feel if she’d walked in and Carolina or someone were there. She pulled her helmet off and slammed it into the back of her own locker because she'd been moved down on the leaderboard that day for no apparent reason.    


Needless to say, she was a little bit angry over it. Not that it would change  _ anything. _

She needed a chance to clean up though. A couple of minutes in a shower of blissfully hot water would usually help her calm down, and it would be enough to keep her brother from coming after her to try and get her to relax. Like it didn't occur to him that not trying to smother her would have been better.    
  
Behind the lockers, South heard a quiet sniffling sound.    
  
So she had company. That wasn't exactly welcome, but South could play along for a little bit. Not that she really wanted to at the moment.    
  
South took a deep breath and counted down from five, stripping herself down and out of her armor at the same time. Unlike her helmet, the rest went back into place without too much unneeded violence. Once she was down to half of her armor left, South heard the person on the other side of the lockers moving around.    
  
They'd been crying.  _ Shit _ . That wasn't good for either of them because the touchy feely  _ emotional  _ stuff was more North's thing. Which explained how he was able to screw around with York on the side... while York also screwed around with Carolina. Or something. The point was that South wasn’t very good at this stuff. At all. She never had been.   
  
"You okay there?" South asks, raising her voice a little bit more than she probably should have.    
  
"Yeah." The woman on the other side says, and she sounds exhausted. "Rough day is all."    
  
"Welcome to the Mother of Invention." South remarks as she walks around the lockers. The woman that she is sharing the locker room is small, and looks more like a girl than a woman really. She's got these wide doe eyes, and she's small, and... well, cute. 

But she’s a Freelancer, so she can also probably invert someone’s cranial cavity without much trouble.   
  
"Thanks." The woman says, pulling off one of her boots. She sets it down at her side, right next to its twin. "I've been here for a few days, and it's... a lot to get used to."    
  
That at least explains why South has never seen her before. She shrugs and offers a hand. "Agent South Dakota."    
  
"Connecticut." The woman replies, standing up herself and shaking South's hand. "It's nice to meet you."    
  
“Thanks.” South says as she takes a few steps away. “I’m sorry you’ve had a shitty day.” 

“Thanks.” Connecticut replies as she get out of the rest of her armor. “It sounded like yours wasn’t great either, though.”

“Yeah,” South grumbles. “I had to go to debriefing today, and it’s just about the worst thing in the world because the Director’s a dick and the Counselor’s creep city. You probably haven’t had to deal with that yet, have you?” She gives Connecticut an appraising look.  

For just a second, South could swear that she saw the slightest bit of a smile stretching across Connecticut’s face. Connecticut bows her head slightly, storing some of her things back away in her own locker. “I can definitely agree to that.” She said quietly. “I think that right now I’m just trying to figure out how things work around here. A lot of it doesn’t seem to make that much sense”    
  
South shrugged, because it sounded like Connecticut was asking questions that there weren’t really good answers to. Nobody really seemed to know how Project Freelancer actually worked, and South had sat in on the attempts to quantify all of it- most of which had gone poorly. "I think that the best way to get things done around here is to try and play along with what the Director wants. The Counselor's a creep, but if you do what the Director wants and try to keep your nose clean you'll stay out of trouble."    
  
Connecticut smirks. "You know, it sounds like you're speaking from experience."    
  
"I might be." South replies, stretching slightly. "Everyone gets into trouble with them at some point or another. Everyone on the board for the most part, most people that aren't on it. The Director doesn't like failure, and he's a righteous cock about it." South mutters those last words, and she can feel the annoyance rising in her over it all. It's just another reminder that she had screwed up on a mission, and that was something that she wasn't a fan of. “Point is, he likes when people do what  _ he  _ wants. Emphasis on him.”   
  
"Right." Connecticut says, her brown eyes flicking away from South. "Well, should I worry about running into trouble for missing meals?"   
  
"Nah," South says, stretching. "I think that I've got to get one of my own right about now. My brother's probably going to be waiting to see me. He gets kind of needy after being left alone for too long. Kind of like a puppy."    
  
Connecticut hesitates, and that shows on her face clear as day. "Mind if I walk with you to the mess hall?" She asks, holding her head high and confidently. "Because I don't think that I've really gotten used to the layout around here yet."    
  
South shrugs and walks back over to her own locker, doing her best to ignore the fact that Connecticut was following after her. She slipped out of the rest of her armor and stored it away in her locker before turning so that they can leave. "You'll get used to being here." She said calmly, stretching as the two of them finally left the locker room. "My only real advice I can give you is... Well, there's this one rookie. Washington or something. My brother and York keep on telling him that there are rooms on the ship that don't exist. So just... don't listen to them if they try to tell you something. Because they’re both full of shit."    
  
"Right." Connecticut says. "David's in my squad. He's uh... kind of gullible."    
  
South stops dead in her tracks, eyes going wide at the comment because she knows enough about the way that things work that she has to say  _ something _ . She turns and steps in front of Connecticut before speaking up. "Look, I know that you probably don't know this yet, but generally we try to avoid using real names. The Director likes it when we keep things nice and impersonal."   
  
"Impersonal." Connecticut says. "And yet you talk like you know all of the members of your squad."    
  
South just shrugged and gestured to a wall where the leaderboard was displayed, since that was about all that she could do for the moment. "They're the guys that I go on missions with and get shot with. You'll get used to it yourself. Once you've been here for a bit your rank will start to stick. But… names are a big deal. It’ll make it easier for you if you don’t use real ones."    
  
Connecticut nods.  "That sounds... okay."    
  
South nods, pushing the doors open until the two of them were stepping into the mess hall. Her brother was sitting at a table across from York, who had Carolina at his side and the three of them were talking to each other. South rolled her eyes and grabbed at Connecticut's arm, tugging her along so that they got into line for food.    
  
"So..." Connecticut says, calmly. "It sounds like you've been here for a while."    
  
"I have." South says. "My brother and I got brought in together about a year and a half ago."

South glanced over at her brother, not wanting to pay him too much attention when she had someone new to talk to. With her luck, he would notice her, come over to introduce himself, and then Connecticut would end up with a hopeless crush on North just like all of her friends and crushes had back when they'd been kids.    
  
And yeah, South wasn't going to pretend that there wasn't a part of her that still held a grudge over how many of her middle school crushes had slipped through her fingers. North had never even been interested, but that hadn't been enough to make her feel any better. The disappointment had stuck.    
  
Connecticut seems interested though- or maybe South is just reading into things because Connecticut  _ is _ pretty cute. She nods along and the two of them go through the line,collecting their food before making their way off to the table. Almost the entire time, South could only focus on how she really didn't want to end up blowing it. She walked over to a mostly empty table and took a seat, just within North's line of sight but not enough to catch his attention.    
  
Connecticut sat down across from her.   
  
"So-" South starts, jabbing at the gruel that the kitchen staff were calling mashed potatoes. There probably wasn’t anything in it that could actually be called potatoes. "Please tell me that there's a better name for you than Connecticut. You wouldn't be the first to have a shitty name here, but everyone with the bad ones try to shorten it somehow."   
  
"Like being South instead of South Dakota, or just Dakota?" Connecticut asks.    
  
"More like being called York instead of New York, or West instead of West Virginia. If I went by Dakota it would be  _ shitty _ ." South says. She shifts her shoulders and leans over to make sure that North's definitely not going to be able to see anything. She jabs a thumb in the direction of where North, York, and Carolina sitting. "Besides, that asshole the Director decided that me and baby brother needed to be both of the Dakotas. So he's North because he's tall or something, and I get stuck with South. If I had my way, we’d have different names and different armor. But we’re twins so all that matters is that."   
  
"Shit." Connecticut says. "Some of my friends here have been just calling me Connie instead of Connecticut."   
  
Connie. It's a good name, South thinks. Just similar enough to her companion's codename to work, and just far enough to make it feel like a more natural thing. Like it could have almost been Connie's honest to god, given name.    
  
After so much of being around people with obviously fake names, it was a breath of fresh air.    
  
"Sounds good, Connie." South says, grinning as she pushed her food around on her tray with a slightly bent fork. A part of her wonders if she might be able to get North's dessert portion for the day, but that would depend on whether York had beaten her to it.    
  
Which he probably had.    
  
The prick.    
  
Connie looks away from her, casting a glance over her shoulder at a table where a couple of soldiers that South hasn't seen before were sitting. Three people in armor that was too similar for South's taste and only reminds South that she  _ really _ needs to see about getting a new paint job on her own gear sometime. One, in grey and yellow. One, too large and too tall and wearing mostly white.   
  
South hesitates, not sure if she wants to ask about it at all. "Friends of yours?"   
  
"Yeah." Connie says, tearing her eyes away from the group and focusing on South again. "I think that we're all just trying to get used to things right now. You've been here for a while, but I've been on the ship for a week or two at most."    
  
South nods, and then she realizes that Connie isn't looking at her. Instead, she's looking past her shoulder, and South raises an eyebrow to look because if it was her brother coming to bother them-   
  
But it wasn't North. North seemed to be rather engrossed in a conversation that York and Carolina are having, following along while York rambles about something and gestures to one of his patent booklets he keeps. They're getting a lecture on some sort of high end lock that York probably is dying to get his fingers on.    
  
Instead, Connie was looking at the leaderboard. The one that South had been moved down on that very day.   
  
It is almost enough to sour South's mood entirely.    
  
"You're pretty high ranking here." Connie says, her eyes tearing away from the board and back to South. "I... guess it never really registered. South Dakota was always just a name on a list."   


South looks up at the board herself and can only wish that she had words for what she needed to say. The fact of the matter was that the leaderboard tended to dominate every aspect of their lives there on the Mother of Invention. Inevitably, that would become the case for Connie as well, and that was something that South wanted for her to be spared from.   
  
But that wasn't how things worked on the Mother of Invention.   
  
“Yeah,” South sighs, poking around her gruel with her fork. "I've spent a lot of time trying to get there." She explains, like that would be enough to justify everything. Like that was going to be able to tell Connie everything that she needed to know about life on the Mother of Invention.    
  
South made a mental note to try and check in on the full ranking list later on. She could probably find out whether or not Connie was higher or lower ranks. But if she was hanging out with the new kids it was too likely that she was lower.    
  
Which was a pity, because South was curious about what Connie was there for.   
  
"What did you have to do to get that high on it?" Connie asks. "Because if you're on there out of only 50 agents-"   
  
"49." South cuts Connie off, because it's a common enough misconception that people had. "For some reason, our number one Carolina gets two states. Because she's  _ special _ . She seems to get two of everything really, in case you were wondering whether or not the Director is biased. And he is, by the way."    
  
South frowns, glancing back over in North's direction. Carolina was getting up for some reason, leaving both North and York behind. "She's little miss perfect. You'll get used to it."    
  
Connie looks a little bit more than just disconcerted by what South had said. Like she had just been scared out of ever aspiring to move up on the leaderboard herself. Even though she wanted to be on the top, it felt like it was going to be impossible. South hadn't quite given up on her own intentions of getting up there.    
  
But seeing as she had just been knocked down on it a little bit, it seemed like that was never happening.   
  
North would probably get the chance, the asshole.    
  
"Is... that normal?" Connie asks, and she looks worried. "Because it sounds like there is some serious favoritism."   
  
"You have no idea." South mumbles. "Once you've been around for a bit longer you'll pick up on some things. Just wait."   
  
Connie nods. "Do you have any advice for being here, or-"   
  
"Just do your job, mostly." South sighs, wishing that it was going to be enough. Doing their jobs didn't keep people alive, and it didn't make life any easier. It just made things livable and when it came to life on the Mother of Invention that had to be enough.    
  
It never would be.    
  
"Thanks." Connie sighs. She pokes at her own food, looking a little bit more than dejected. "If I need anything, do you think that I could-"    
  
"Yeah." South says before Connie could even finish because it was a chance for her to ensure that she could talk to the other girl again. And Connie was attracted and didn't seem to hate her at all. "Any time you need, just... come and ask. Us ladies need to stick together around here anyways."    
  
Connie smiles. "Thanks, South." She says again, having not really touched her food at all. "I guess that I'll be seeing you around."   
  
"For sure." South answers, since she was about done with attempting to choke down the day's gruel herself. "Oh, and Connie?"   
  
Connie swiveled to look back at her. "Yeah?"   
  
South smirks. "A good starting place for surviving on here- generally it's not good to be crying in the locker room."    
  
Connie manges a laugh, and it's a good sound that almost reminds South of bells. "I'll try to keep that in mind. I'll see you, South."    
  
"Yeah." South says, feeling the rise of something akin to hope in her chest. "I'll be around."   
  
Out of the corner of her eye, South watched as Connie left and could only think that this was a very good start for how things could go.   
  
Connie was cute, and South-    
  
Well, she was willing to help her out. Even if it would be for entirely selfish reasons.

**Author's Note:**

> Any and all comments and criticism are greatly appreciated.
> 
> [I'm on tumblr. Sometimes stuff happens. I'm always willing to take new prompts and questions there!](http://tyrian-callows.tumblr.com/)


End file.
